


a logical progression

by callmearcturus



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal, Really Bad Marriage Proposals, post-Who's A Good Boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 12:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmearcturus/pseuds/callmearcturus
Summary: "I'msorry,but are you lecturing me about my job again after proposing to me on a sofa bed in my brother-in-law's house? Is that what's happening right now?" Cecil says, jumping octaves."I thought about this very thoroughly," Carlos says, brow furrowing with the force of his seriousness.In the aftermath, Carlos accelerates things. It's only logical.





	a logical progression

**Author's Note:**

> directly post-Who's A Good Boy Part 2, because that's when I imagine it happening.

After everything has settled, Steve says, "We should stay together," in a hoarse voice, in the quiet that falls after the end doesn't come. "You-- you should come stay with us."

Abby silently takes a hold of Cecil's elbow, and he swallows thickly. It's an old sense memory, his big sister hauling him around by the elbow when he was being a particularly onerous brat. Now, it's declawed, just a firm touch.

He meets her eyes, then Carlos'.

"That sounds like a good idea," he answers for them both, nodding, his hands tightening minutely on the handles of Janice's wheelchair.

  
  


They move together as a unit, down the streets. Abby keeps a hold of Cecil, turning her grip into an arm linked through his. It lodges a walnut in his throat, even if she doesn't speak. Doesn't acknowledge it at all.

He does, in letting her do it. His head is spinning, an empty carnival ride, hollow and cacophonous. He can still hear the staccato screaming of Francis Donaldson, the way it sounded like a tape player being played and paused, played and paused. He hopes she doesn't remember any of this.

Steve pushes Janice's chair, and she allows it quietly, without remark, acquiescence through silence. The parallel hits Cecil like a slap, and he reaches down to touch her shoulder.

Carlos walks on her other side, and they have his niece surrounded in a wall of protectors, he realizes. With Janice's head hung tired and low, she doesn't see the wreckage around town, the clean up that awaits Night Vale in the wake of that fucking beagle.

The Palmer-Carlsberg household is dark, but unharmed. Abby breathes out a hard sigh of relief, finally releasing Cecil to hurry up the garden path, shaking her keys loose in her hand. Steve lets out a noise like he's been struck in the gut. "No place like home."

"I got this, dad," Janice says, at long last putting a hand on the steering stick for her chair. She wheels quickly after her mother, leaving the men to amble up.

Steve goes into the house first. Cecil looks to Carlos, wanting to ask something, wanting some kind of approval or permission, but all his words have run dry, along with his mouth.

Carlos stands on the front porch, watching all of this on Cecil's face. Perhaps a scientist can take in this kind of visual data and turn it into something viable. Perhaps Carlos just knows Cecil by now.

"Just for tonight," he says. "We'll go home tomorrow."

"Okay," Cecil agrees, and his voice sounds awful. They both wince in unison at the fraying.

Inside, Carlos fetches a glass of water for Cecil, then crowds him out of the kitchen. "Your sister is in there. Uh, she needs a moment."

Right. Abby always waited until after the crisis to go through the emotional fallout.

Letting himself be steered, they both move to the living room. Steve's taking care of Janice, lifting her bodily from her motorized chair to her manual chair. A long thick cord is plugged into her motorized chair, charging it.

Janice pushes herself around the sofa until she's rolled up to Cecil and Carlos. Reaching out, she takes both their hands in her smaller ones. "Today was really scary," she says softly.

Talking is a bad idea, so Cecil instead kneels to hug her. Her arm winds around his neck, her other hand still holding tight to Carlos'.

"I'm glad you're okay," she whispers to Cecil. "Uncle Carlos was worried when you went off by yourself." Her lips press together. "That was kinda stupid."

He barks a laugh that turns into a cough. "Tch, yeah. Yes, it might've been."

Over them, Steve says, "Once I get her settled, I'll get the sofa opened up for you."

"No, no, go be with her. I can handle a sofa bed," Carlos reassures him. "A scientist can handle basic engineering."

"Thanks," Steve breathes.

Janice releases her hold on Cecil, then primly puts her hands on her lap. "I'm ready for a bath, father."

Steve's smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, limned with red from almost-crying for hours. He takes hold of her chair reverently and pushes her out of the room, down the hall.

The night is quiet in a way that seems wrong after such a calamity. There should be a din of noise, distant sirens, something. But everything is still, with the only ambient sound coming from circling helicopters.

They get the bad pulled out and made before Abby joins them. She had a bottle with her and three small glasses gripped between her fingers. They tink loudly on the coffee table as she sets them out.

Carlos sits on the edges of the bed, close to the table, and they both watch as she pours them each a finger of scotch.

"This is why I'm a cat person," Abby says darkly, and lifts her glass, drinks.

"Chin-chin," Carlos says, and knocks back his shot.

Cecil follows their lead, knowing it isn't going to do his throat any favors, but willing to forgo sense to indulge in this with his family. Abby holds up the bottle again; Cecil shakes his head, but Carlos holds up his glass. They both do a second round before the bottle gets put up on a high shelf.

"Need anything?" Abby asks, remembering she's a host belatedly and without much passion.

"Nothing we don't know how to find," Cecil tells her. "We'll be fine."

"I think I'm going to turn in anyway," Carlos says.

She nods, and meets Cecil's eyes for a moment. He's never been a fan of reflections, but he sees himself in her, in the cheek bones and the pale eyes.

Abby leaves, disappearing down the same hallway Steve and Janice did.

They are alone, and Cecil sinks down next to Carlos, listening to the squeak of metal springs. At that, Carlos bounces on it slightly, and it squeaks again. "Not a great bed," he notes.

"Don't think it'll matter much." Cecil pulls at his tunic, uncoordinated with exhaustion. "I could sleep in the embrace of the Scrublands right now."

"You sound terrible." Carlos reaches other and grabs the hem of Cecil's shirt, pulling it up and over his head for him. "Come on."

In the still wake of the catastrophic day, they lay down on the sofa bed, what'd be generously called a full size. Cecil puts his head down, close enough to feel Carlos' breath when he exhales, and is asleep in moments.

 

 

It's still dark when Cecil wakes up to a finger pushing on the tip of his nose like a button. He rolls back, nearly off the bed. "What? What, what's happenin'?"

Carlos tugs him in so he doesn't fall again, laying partly across Cecil's chest. "Hey. Cecil."

Blinking blurrily, Cecil rubs his face. "You're awake."

"Yes," Carlos says, smirking a little.

"No, like, you're… _awake._ " This is a fact and a fearful one at that. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." His voice is caramel and _vividly conscious_ in a way that makes no sense. Carlos usually sleeps like the dreaming dead through the night. It's practically his superpower. "I've been thinking."

"That's what a scientist does," Cecil mutters, feeling like he might still be asleep and just not know it yet.

"Yes, but I don't mean like that." His thumb strokes to and fro against Cecil's clavicle. "I've been thinking about today. And about the future."

A grimace takes over Cecil's face before he can stop it.

"Non-specifically. Or, about today, non-specifically. I was thinking of something very specific for the future."

"Okay," Cecil says, tired and indulging Carlos out of a deep abiding love for this man who has woken him up because non-specific and specific thinking.

"I think we should get married."

Cecil stares at him, then rubs his face again. "Sorry, I-- say that again."

Carlos tilts his head, staring down at Cecil with unfathomable patience in his eyes. "I think we should get married."

"Oh that's what I thought you said," Cecil says with relief, letting out a sigh.

Then, he sits up, nearly braining Carlos in the skull. "Wait, married, as in married? As in marriage? As in matrimony? _Married?!"_

"Shhhh!" Carlos waves a hand at Cecil frantically. "You're going to wake the house! Or the people living in it. Or both, for all I know!"

"Did you just--" Cecil bites his lip and presses his hands to his mouth for a moment, breathing deep through his nose. "Mmfhl."

"I've been thinking about it quite extensively," Carlos says, low and quick in that way he does whenever he's explaining some discovery he's made, the important ones that he needs Cecil to understand. "And, you know, I recognize and acknowledge that my timing is less than romantic, especially since the ring is in the lab and who knows when I'm going to be able to get into _there_ next to get it--" Cecil lets out a high pitched whine, and Carlos pauses to shush him again, "--but in the wake of this business with the Strangers and what I think might've been a physical manifestation of Satan or something? I think putting things off further based on some assumed optimum timeline for relationship milestones is more than a little reckless, given the lack of safety of our lives, especially when you insist on endangering yourself further like you totally did today--"

"I'm _sorry_ , but are you lecturing me about my job again after proposing to me on a sofa bed in my brother-in-law's house? Is that what's happening right now?" Cecil says, jumping octaves.

"I thought about this very thoroughly," Carlos says, brow furrowing with the force of his seriousness. "I'm trying to explain, Ceec."

"You have a ring already?" Something helpless takes over Cecil's face as he stares at Carlos. "I didn't buy a ring."

Carlos doesn't quite look contrite, but he does lower his gaze to the inch of space between them as he shrugs. "It's logical progression. I know how to read a data set, even if it's sort of… built of affection and time and intimacy. It's just different points of information."

"Oh, logical," Cecil echoes, strained. "I… Carlos."

He straightens up, putting his hands on the sofa arm to balance on his knees. "I can do this right. Cecil Palmer."

"Oh my god," Cecil says, another damn walnut in his throat.

"Yeah, I know, honey," Carlos soothes. "Cecil Palmer, I'm, uh, I'm ready to live my life out in this remarkable, singular place, and to live it out with a remarkable, singular person. If you're willing to keep me. Marry me, please."

The headrush is intense, the pendulum swinging from the horrible sour wretched day they survived to the other side, where Cecil feels tears sting his eyes as he tries to keep a grip on himself. "I can't believe you are proposing to me on a sofa bed."

"It's really hard to balance like this," Carlos points out. "Do you want me to do this again later?"

"No!" Cecil grabs him, holding him so he doesn't topple over. Knowing their luck, he'd fall off the bed and hurt himself on the hardwood floors. "I-- I-- I will keep you forever, jealously and faithfully, Carlos, I will keep you, yes, I'll marry you, let's get married."

"I'll get the ring as soon as I can," Carlos promises. "Maybe Nilanjana can sneak in for me."

"I don't need a ring," Cecil says, and pulls Carlos in to fall against his chest, kissing him. After a moment of that, he pulls back and revises. "Actually, that's a lie, I would really, really like that ring. Don't get in trouble or anything, but as soon as you can get it, I would definitely like to have it."

Carlos smiles and kisses him. "Good. Excellent. Neat." Another kiss. "We can go back to sleep now."

"What if this is just a dream?" Cecil worries aloud. "I don't know if I want to risk it."

"That is a conundrum." He gives it serious consideration before brightening. "But if it is, I can assure you, all you have to do is ask, 'Hey, Carlos, should we get married,' and in minutes we'll be right back here. I promise. This is something I've given a not insignificant amount of thought."

That helps, and Cecil sighs, shutting his eyes and laying back on the pillow. "You're a good scientist," he murmurs, stroking his hand through Carlos' hair.

"I know," he replies with a bit of smugness. "I love you."

"I love you, Carlos," Cecil says, tucking his face into soft, curled hair. "Carlos, my fiance. Oooh, wait'll I tell them."

"Blabbermouth," Carlos whispers fondly, and falls asleep against Cecil's heart.


End file.
